The return of a crew and/or of samples of matter from a distant planet to the Earth makes it necessary inter alia to send a spacecraft, called an orbiter, to the planet which is to be explored and to return this spacecraft to the Earth. This operation gives rise, in the course of the journey, to several important manoeuvres and an associated consumption of weight of fuel since it is necessary, notably, for the spacecraft to accelerate in order to take off from the Earth, and then to brake before it arrives at the planet to be explored, to accelerate again in order to leave the planet and finally to brake before arriving on Earth.
The consumption of fuel being on the one hand very significant during periods of large variations in speed, that is to say during the various phases of takeoff and landing, and on the other hand all the higher the greater the total weight of the craft, these successive speed variations create an exponential amplification in the fuel requirements, called a “snowball” effect, and therefore in the weight to be carried. Typically, the weight of fuel necessary for an interplanetary mission is greater than the useful weight, called the dry weight, of the spacecraft.
The weight of fuel to be carried being very significant, it impacts enormously on the costs of the interplanetary mission as well as on the size and the weight of the orbiter spacecraft by demanding on departure, for example, a bigger and therefore more expensive rocket launcher.
To reduce the weight of fuel to be carried for an interplanetary mission, it is known to use, for the return to Earth, an aero-thermo-dynamic passive re-entry capsule which dissipates its energy directly into the terrestrial atmosphere during a re-entry phase. This re-entry capsule makes it possible to circumvent the last braking phase before landing on Earth but presents risks of accidents that are very critical for the terrestrial environment, notably when the mission, such as for example the American Genesis mission which was not successful in its Earth landing phase when retrieving samples of dust from a comet, consists in bringing back samples of matter.